|
|
| "The Land" is a game based on "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever", a series of fantasy books written by Stephen Donaldson. The Land, a beautiful world, made by the Creator (a man from our world), is in danger of being destroyed by Lord Foul, who seeks his freedom from the Land. The Creator can not interfere in Lord Foul's plans directly, because it would immediately set Lord Foul free. So, the task of stopping Lord Foul falls on your shoulders. |
|
|
This rogue RPG starts of as most of them do - name your character, choose his gender, assign a limited number of points to different abilities (strength, wisdom, dexterity, constitution etc), and choose his job. The jobs may look a little confusing to those that haven't read the book, but, don't worry. The zip contains a file (PDLand.doc) that explains the jobs. The selected job decides if your character will have any special skills (ability to wield weapons, ride, use magic etc), and your starting point in the game. |
|
|
Experience (like in other RPG games) is gained by fighting - and believe me, there will be a lot of that, so reaching higher experience levels shouldn't be a problem. Keeping that level of your abilities could be. Unlike other RPG games, characters in "The Land" have some vow or oath to follow. If the characters don't follow their oath, their abilities will be reduced over time (again, file PDLand.doc has more explanations on how oaths work). Almost all enemy encounters are random, and they could happen on the main map, or in various (hidden or not) dungeons. If the character is not strong enough for the fight, escape is an option.
Useful items can be found after the fights, in the settlements that you visit, or you can buy them from merchants (the last option is a rather expensive way to get the items). Their effects vary: some will give you stronger attack, others better defense, and some protection against certain attacks.
The plot (and, eventually, the goal of the game) is revealed through talking with NPC. Dialogues boil down to one-line statements from NPC you meet, and some of the info is important, while other is not.
All the commands might look too complex, but, in fact, they're not (complete list of commands is in the PDLand.doc file). One thing I didn't like is the possibility to easily kill a NPC - the game ends the moment you do that. The graphics are not a looker (CGA), and there's no sound in the game, but all of this shouldn't be that big of a problem to all the fans of mr Donaldson's work.
The game runs well on faster machines, and it has run under Win98/95 without a problem (you could play your favourite tunes in an external program, pop-out of the program and back into it, and the game would still run).
So, if you have read "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever", you could give this game a try. On the other hand, if you hadn't read the book and have tried this game and found that it's just a waste of (your) time, run down to your library, borrow the book, and try the game after you've read the book :) |
|
| Reviewer: Abandon5000 |
|
